African Adventure: Part TWO!

So the next part of my adventure took place in the beautiful Cape Town! Since I have now discovered that I am a city girl at heart, this was my favorite part of the trip! It also led to the the most playtime with Elin so how could I NOT love it? I've been in Elin withdrawal for about two months now!

On Saturday morning we went up the cable car to the aptly named Table Mountain. We could NOT have asked for better weather! It was probably the warmest day of the trip with not a cloud in the sky. The view from the top was breath taking, and we had some fun exploring.

After a few hours we returned to the bottom to get over to Elin's Cape Town abode for a braai held for us and a few other families that were visiting and in celebration of two birthdays! Elin and her fellow grad and undergrad students cooked some DELICIOUS sausage, chicken, lamb, corn and garlic bread for us! Like everything on the trip, it was wonderful! I stayed for awhile after to watch an intense ultimate frisbee game (I was way too full and uncoordinated to participate) and to watch that night's soccer and rugby games! Rugby is a sport I will NEVER understand..I feel like Ross from Friends when I watch it! haha

On Sunday the whole family piled into our rental car to explore the Cape Peninsula! It was on this car ride that I ate the most delicious food of all...a whole city!!

The Cape of Good Hope was windy but very cool! You could see only oceans for as far as the eye could see in every direction! Then we went to where the old and new lighthouses are and I don't remember much else from that part of the trip because I used most of my energy to complain during this half hour of uphill walking to both lighthouses. But when we stopped at the two oceans restaurant afterwards for burgers, it was doubly delicious!!

My favorite part of the day was when we stopped to see the jackass penguins! They're called jackass penguins because they have a TV show where do stupid stunts to potentially hurt themselves...JUST KIDDING! They make this funny sound that sounds like donkeys! That's why! The best part about it was that they had babies!! And watching them waddle!! They look so silly!

Monday we went to Green Markey Square, a big open-air market in the city, and we wandered around a little bit in the slave lodge (they had a decent Nelson Mandela exhibit) and the community gardens. On Tuesday, we were glad to have visited the Mandela exhibit because we went to Robben Island, the island where political prisoners were kept during apartheid. The cool part about Robben Island is the tour guides, because they were all political prisoners themselves, and seeing Nelson Mandela's cell. For me, the cool stopped there. I wasn't really impressed with any other part of the tour, and I felt like they didn't really do justice to the experiences of the other prisoners there.

After our stay in Cape Town, we left for Stellenbosch, a cute town north of the city in the wine country. I liked this part of the trip because it included days of wine tastings and spa visits, and nights filled with delicious wine and food. I learned something very important about myself in this part of the journey...I'm and ABC-er, and "Anything But Chardonnay" wine drinker! A woman on one of our tastings pegged me as an unwooded white wine drinker and I haven't turned back ever since. Who would've thought that I would discover myself as a wino in South Africa and not Italy?? haha
On our very last day in Africa, We drove down to Cape Town to hang out with Elin (our flight wasn't until midnight!) This was another one of my favorite days, because we went to Old Biscuit Mill, a Saturday market that is filled with people, food, and shops..all my favorite things!! We hung out there for a while, drinking cappuccinos (which had heart designs in the foam!! so cool!) shopping and tasting food. Then Elin and I spent a looong time getting everyone lunch and we packed it up for a picnic in the Kirstenbosch gardens. They gardens were beautiful but my favorite part was eating the gyro that Elin and I got for ourselves: chicken, onions, yogurt-y sauce -y stuff, lettuce and FRENCH FRIES all rolled into a pita! Seriously, best thing I've ever eaten. After some hours wandering around and looking for a flower bigger than my face to bring back for Erin, we left to say goodbyes and head back home.

And after a loooooooong journey home, we made it home and now we get to tell everybody about the best trip ever! YAY!